HENRY FORD INTERNAL MEDICINE RESIDENCY REVIEW

[Medicine_Gal]

review

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[Jamie561]

Henry Ford review

1st response to Henry Ford review

 

[maddogmurphy]

counter point to other opinions

 

[Animalcules]

counter point to other opinions

You are obviously wrong. Agree with OP's review.

 

[Instatewaiter]

You are obviously wrong. Agree with OP's review.

Insert generic comment here.

 

[4sport]

Don't listen to all these opinions. Just go with your gut.

 

[Animalcules]

This thread already exists in a parallel universe. Closing.

 

[Pakku-man]

I thought my interview there was pleasant. Plenty of fellowship opportunities. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the residents there are overworked? I was not excited to find out that the program still has afternoon clinics and does not adopt the 3 + 1 type system. I didn't get a good read on the program director either.

To those above, please let's have an actual review.

 

[dyeguy21]

To those above, please let's have an actual review.

There was never a question asked, mon ami. It was stated that it was her review, followed by bickering about whether her review was legitimate. I see no problem here. Carry on.

 

[Aralc]

I thought my interview there was pleasant. Plenty of fellowship opportunities. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the residents there are overworked? I was not excited to find out that the program still has afternoon clinics and does not adopt the 3 + 1 type system. I didn't get a good read on the program director either.

To those above, please let's have an actual review.

I don't know about the details of the IM residency, but I can say there are several specialties/subspecialties which have world-class physicians (but it's a large health system and not everyone can be exceptional, take that for what it's worth). There is a lot of pathology as well, being in an inner-city and a referral center. There's all the material here to get an excellent clinical training if you want it. As with any program, there are costs and drawbacks - you just have to figure out how it fits with your needs/ priorities/ qualifications.

 

[Medicine_Gal]

review

 

[gutonc]

Ah yes...there it is. Merged with your original thread. You're welcome.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I completed my internal medicine residency at Henry Ford hospital last year. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had many medical students ask me about my program. In a nutshell, it’s a very abusive residency program and violates ACGME rules on a daily basis. Here are some of the reasons why I would not choose this program for residency if I had to do it all over again.

1. Duty hour violations: HF residents violate duty hours on a daily basis. Every time we have logged in duty hour violations, we get an email from the chief residents, indirectly telling us to withdraw the logged hours and put in new ones. I’ve worked anywhere from 90-120 hours per week in this program especially in the ICU.

2. Scheduling: Here is the worst part. The scheduling system is not really a system in this program. They can change the schedule whenever they want to fit their needs. For example, they will tell you that you will be given 6 months of electives in 3rd year, however, at the end of 2nd year they will changes the number of electives to 4-5 and make you do 2 extra floor months. They violate the signed contract and pretend that it never happened.

3. There is a complete lack of appreciation by the program faculty. No matter how hard you work, it is not enough. Residents are treated like garbage here. They are nothing but cheap labor to everyone.

4. Program coordinators: There are two PCs. They don’t seem to give a rat’s a** about residents. The scheduling done by them is extremely poor. There have been time when residents were actually pulled FROM VACATION to do back-up because the scheduling was faulty.

5. Outpatient clinic setup: We have 13 patients to see on a full clinic day (8AM to 5PM) and get 30 minutes for each patient. However, if a patient shows up an hour late for their appointment (which is basically 80% of the patients), we still have to see them. As a result, the 8-5 clinic session ends up being 8-8. Because of this lack of structure in the clinic, every single patient shows up late (as they know that they will be seen no matter what time they show up at). Program does not seem to care about this as it’s all about the money.

6. ICUs: They make you do 4 ICU months in 2nd year. In an ICU, you are on a 30 hour call (which usually turns into a 36 hour call) every 4th day. During one of these 4 months (the CICU), the call is basically every other day and you end up spending the whole month in the hospital. There are gross duty hour violations (>80hrs/week) during this month, but the program expects us not to log the actual duty hours.

7. Chief residents: There is a separate year for chief residency (PGY4). The sole criteria for getting into a chief spot is a** kissing. It doesn’t matter how qualified you are, if you haven’t kissed a**, you can’t be the chief. For the same reason, HF IM chiefs are usually poorly qualified, lazy and incompetent. Every year, many qualified candidates are unable to get a spot because they don’t have enough ‘ties in the program’.

8. Workload: It is an extremely busy residency program. Resident fatigue does not mean a thing to this program. Frankly speaking, residents are being abused.

9. Research: Research opportunities at HF are close to none. You have to struggle extra hard to get your hands on a small research project, and even when you do, you literally do not have the time to work on research.

Sounds like a good old-fashioned ass-busting residency program!

 

[pulmoblast]

Sounds like any inner city medicine program with > 50% fmg/img

 

[Aralc]

To be more specific - interventional pulmonary is top notch. Advanced GI endoscopy great - able to recently recruit faculty away from UM. Cards also recently hired high profile chair. There are other examples in other specialties, these were the ones that immediately came to mind in medicine. The difference between here and UM is that HFH places more value on clinical skills. Less on research, and much much less on bench research. I know the program will accommodate research, but honestly I would start to plan it your first month intern year, or earlier if possible. Residents usually underestimate what is involved in taking on a research project.

The EM/IM program is amazing- turns out incredible clinicians.

I don't have the first hand knowledge of Medicinegal but I have to object to the disparaging remarks about chiefs.

Any chief I have interacted with certainly deserved the honor. And if someone doesn't realize that what they call a@@kissing is actually critical to being a chief, they don't understand the entirety of what is involved. Coming from someone who never was a chief resident.

But she may be right that it is a difficult residency. Didn't seem that different than my own.

 

[IMreshopeful]

Being a chief resident seems like a miserable and thankless job to me

 

[Aralc]

Being a chief resident seems like a miserable and thankless job to me

Probably true in many ways. Hopefully no one will ask you to do it. Thankfully odds generally in your favor. 🙂

 

[Medicine_Gal]

To be more specific - interventional pulmonary is top notch. Advanced GI endoscopy great - able to recently recruit faculty away from UM. Cards also recently hired high profile chair. There are other examples in other specialties, these were the ones that immediately came to mind in medicine. The difference between here and UM is that HFH places more value on clinical skills. Less on research, and much much less on bench research. I know the program will accommodate research, but honestly I would start to plan it your first month intern year, or earlier if possible. Residents usually underestimate what is involved in taking on a research project.

The EM/IM program is amazing- turns out incredible clinicians.

I don't have the first hand knowledge of Medicinegal but I have to object to the disparaging remarks about chiefs.

Any chief I have interacted with certainly deserved the honor. And if someone doesn't realize that what they call a@@kissing is actually critical to being a chief, they don't understand the entirety of what is involved. Coming from someone who never was a chief resident.

But she may be right that it is a difficult residency. Didn't seem that different than my own.

Nothing about the hospital is "top notch". Hiring 2 "famous physicians" does not make a program good. What I pointed out was how miserable they make their residents. They violate ACGME regulations on a daily basis and residents are threatened to keep it quiet.
For the amount of work they make you do, appreciation is zero. Program faculty is not supportive in general. Favoritism is common. The program is actually VERY MALIGNANT.

Anyone thinking about ranking Henry Ford, I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to work in that hell hole. They will make you want to kill yourself. They will take resident abuse to the next level. I am so glad I am done with it. I am an AMG and had good scores. I could've ranked many other places above Ford but I made the mistake of ranking it high on my list due to family ties in Michigan. I still regret it to this day.

 

[Aralc]

You may be right- I only know about specific specialty and subspecialty physicians that are well-regarded and referral-drivers.

That may or may not translate to the IM resident experience.

Like I said, I have no firsthand experience.

 

[DrElliotReid]

This post made me curious and I looked up the Henry Ford IM program and aside from having an oddly high number of people from Wayne State, it's largely full of FMGs. This is still no excuse for a program to treat residents this way though. It's unfortunate that every residency doesn't care as much about their residents as they should I feel fortunate that I am part of one that is very supportive with great faculty and our chiefs are always trying to make it better for us by tweaking the admitting system if too many people are breaking duty hours and we're encouraged to document our hours accurately.

 

[Celestia]

The odd thing is that the Wayne State students generally rotate through medicine at Henry Ford so you would think they would know whether or not the program was malignant. It might be nice if there were more residents with first hand knowledge of the program who could comment. I looked it up on scutwork, seemed to have more variety of impressions.

Did you also happen to look at fellowship placements?

Also, the statement that nothing about the hospital is topnotch is blatantly untrue. Even a search on SDN in other specialties will yield that conclusion.

 

[Celestia]

Nothing about the hospital is "top notch". Hiring 2 "famous physicians" does not make a program good. What I pointed out was how miserable they make their residents. They violate ACGME regulations on a daily basis and residents are threatened to keep it quiet.
For the amount of work they make you do, appreciation is zero. Program faculty is not supportive in general. Favoritism is common. The program is actually VERY MALIGNANT.

Anyone thinking about ranking Henry Ford, I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to work in that hell hole. They will make you want to kill yourself. They will take resident abuse to the next level. I am so glad I am done with it. I am an AMG and had good scores. I could've ranked many other places above Ford but I made the mistake of ranking it high on my list due to family ties in Michigan. I still regret it to this day.

Why did you delete your initial review?

 

[Torsades42]

It isn't a cush residency by any means. However, I don't know why any categorical internal medicine resident would want a cush residency, you'd run the risk of not being properly trained by the time you hit the real world. We work, we learn, and I can surely say that the comment about violating duty hours is false. You may flirt with them during the intensive care unit months, but that is about it. Fellowship placement has never been any issue. Current senior residents going into PCCM ended up at Unv. of Michigan, CCF, and U Cinn.